[.Neo]

Originally Posted by AppleInsider

A growing number of users have reported that Apple's aluminum all-in-one computers suffer from a flaw that locks up the interface, rendering the system all but inert until a reboot.

Source: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...ng_issues.html

So far I haven't experienced any of those issues with my 2.8 GHz iMac. However, my eMac has suffered from it on more than one occasion in the past. So I doubt the problem is new iMac-specific.

Did any of you noticed this?

[Mike Pither]

not me

[TJeeper]

I have had problems with mine. 24" 2.4GHz. Tried migration assistant with my iBook, repeated freezing of the system. After each attempt, TDM no longer worked without a fresh install of the system (the iBook was in TDM but the iMac would not recognize it). The only way to get it to work was to put the iMac in TDM and transfer data from the iBook.

Patrick

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by .Neo 

Source: AppleInsider | New iMacs plagued by interface freezing issues

So far I haven't experienced any of those issues with my 2.8 GHz iMac. However, my eMac has suffered from it on more than one occasion in the past. So I doubt the problem is new iMac-specific.

Did any of you noticed this?

That is not a normal thing for OS X to do - OS X does not freeze unless there's something wrong with the system. If OS X does do so with any consistency you've got some sort of hardware problem. Also, what you experienced on your eMac has nothing to do with this iMac issue.

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

That is not a normal thing for OS X to do - OS X does not freeze unless there's something wrong with the system. If OS X does do so with any consistency you've got some sort of hardware problem. Also, what you experienced on your eMac has nothing to do with this iMac issue.

At times the eMac shows the exact same behaviour as described in the article. According to the author the problems are probably related to the ATI drivers, something both systems use. Other forum members are reporting it on other systems beyond the iMac as well.

Personally I wouldn't know what the exact cause is, but the symptoms are basically the same. Otherwise the eMac is still working perfectly (the 1GHz G4 is becoming a bit slow though haha).

[ibook_steve]

You cannot compare the hardware and functioning of a 1 GHz G4 and a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo and say the problem is the same. Yes, the symptoms may look similar, but you're basically saying it's the same problem because of software drivers. That doesn't make any sense.

Steve

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by ibook_steve 

You cannot compare the hardware and functioning of a 1 GHz G4 and a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo and say the problem is the same. Yes, the symptoms may look similar, but you're basically saying it's the same problem because of software drivers. That doesn't make any sense.

Steve

Nope I'm saying the symptoms are very similar and both machines have an ATI Radeon graphics card. Beyond that I have no clue what's causing the problem. It doesn't happen that often either.

But you're sure that if and when Apple messed things up with their ATI drivers two different machines can't be affected?

[ibook_steve]

They're completely different graphics chips. How one behaves with a certain set of drivers is going to be completely different from how another one does.

Steve

[cszar2001]

Mine froze once.
No other problems since then - love the 2.8.

[FireWire]

No problem here on my 20" 2.4 iMac

[ghporter]

Never had a hiccup with my 20" aluminum iMac.

[HAGEhead]

I have had this problem on my 24" Aluminum, but really just specifically when opening up a rar or zip file in FFView. I think it has to do with certain graphics calls causing the drivers/GPU to puke.

[Mekman]

No Problems on my 20" 2.4ghz Alum. iMac.

Maybe I should say no major problems yet, I'm a new Mac user and so far I haven't seen anything that caused me any concern.

[fisherKing]

from Macworld News, today, 4oct07":

Apple acknowledged on Thursday recent problems with its consumer iMac computer and promised a fix as soon as possible.
“A small number of iMac users have made us aware that a recent software update issued by Apple can sometimes cause their iMacs to freeze, requiring them to restart their iMac,” an Apple spokesperson told Macworld.
According to users the computer becomes unusable, requiring a hard reset in order to recover. Apple doesn’t know the exact cause of the problem, but they are investigating.
“We are tracking down the root cause of this bug, and will issue a software update which corrects it as soon as we can — most likely later this month,” the company spokesperson said. “We apologize for the inconvenience."

[HazMacFan]

No issues here. Got the 2.8 24". Could be with a particular Chip model.

[Grrr]

I'm on my second alu iMac now. And they both exhibit the same fault.

The problem with this issue is, is that although a lot of people have freezing iMacs, different things appear to trigger it. For some people, using Apples own iApps can trigger it, or just mousing over the dock even. In this case, the fault is blindingly obvious.
However, both my iMacs didnt exhibit any of those issues at all. However, fire up a game of UT2004, and they both froze up pretty quickly, and with all the same ultimate symptoms everyone else found.
I dont really play other games, but I did try a couple of demo's and those seemed to run fine. So its odd that the 2 iMacs I tried suffer the same freeze, and both under more obscure, and far less obvious circumstances (So why do different things on different alu iMacs trigger the same bug?) The only report I read so far of anyone with an alu iMac that said they got UT2004 to work ok, didnt get it to work until Apple replaced the video card.
In which case, this isn't just a software problem surely? And a lot of peoples new iMacs may have the problem and not even realise it yet.

While im here.. I dont believe it is such a small number of iMacs with the problem at all. On the scale of things it seems quite significant. But then we could hardly expect Apple to admit to it being a large, or significant number of iMacs with the fault. Would not do their share price any favours, or their reputation as a whole.
Still, at least they fessed up at last. But it took them nearly 2 months!

If the next update does not fix it this month, then i'll return this second iMac too, but for a refund, rather than exchange.

[TJeeper]

It happened again this morning to my wife. She was running Safari and Mail, then tried to put it to sleep. She said she dropped the menu down to sleep, then it locked up. I hope this gets resolved soon.

[MichiganRich]

My 24" 2.4 is working great.

[rmiller]

My 24" 2.8 ghz froze up tonight when I quit eye-tv. Froze up a couple of times playing Battlefield 2142.

[AC Rempt]

I have had two freezes with my 24" 2.4, and both seemed to happen when I was working with Pages. One time was closing a document and another was opening. This was before the Pages update, and all's well since then.

I'm pretty consistent with repairing disk permissions and the like, too.

[kmkkid]

My Core Duo iMac just froze up the other day, started with a little graphics corruption then nothing but the mouse would move. Probably not related, I'm hoping it was a fluke incident and that nothing is wrong with my hardware. Console didnt make any reports of anything failing or having an error. *shrug*

[.Neo]

Are there any ideas why some iMacs are affected while some don't? I've been intensively using my 2.8 GHz iMac for college work the past days and it didn't lock up once.

[skew]

I got one for our design studio. Locks up at least twice a day in CS3, finder, safari. Can't replicate the crash, it's seemlingy random although we've not put a great deal of effort into locking it down.

It's like going back to 1997.

I fix in the next week or so would be lovely thanks Apple.

[ghporter]

RAM? Enough? Good enough quality? Properly installed? Run the diagnostics and see what comes up for the RAM.

[Grrr]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

RAM? Enough? Good enough quality? Properly installed? Run the diagnostics and see what comes up for the RAM.

Been there, done that. I even removed the stock ram altogether and replaced for another chip. No joy. Hardware tests dont show up anything.

At least Apple acknowledged the problem though, and are apparently working on a fix.
This still doesn't really explain why some iMacs are fine, and some are not however. I'd like to know what the difference is.

[NickelLessNick]

I've had mine about a month, and have experienced sporadic freezes, usually when engaged in graphic-intensive apps: a "cold" boot restores it. Annoying. Hopefully Apple will correct this (if it's a driver issue).

[marcus_radebe]

Hi

My new imac started to display major problems - i lost a whole number of audio files and then the display started to hang, glitch and then went black. Repeatedly.

Ive looked on other forums and it appears it may be related to the graphics card and installing the 1.1 update. Apparently the fix is to revert back to 1.0. Im gonna try it tonight, and if it doesnt work im going to cry and then throw my mac out the window.

marcus_radebe

[Etnier]

I have a 2.8GHz due in here on Thursday. Wonder if it will have the 1.1 update installed, and how I would revert in that case....

[Grrr]

Originally Posted by marcus_radebe 

Hi

Ive looked on other forums and it appears it may be related to the graphics card and installing the 1.1 update. Apparently the fix is to revert back to 1.0.

I wouldn't waste your time doing that, to be honest. If it does fix it, its likely to only be temporary. If the 1.1 update was bad, Im sure Apple would have pulled it.
I had as many freeze ups before the 1.1 update, as I did after the 1.1 update.

[Big Slick]

I'm kinda glad I'm not the only one having issues with the 24" 2.8ghz alum iMac. My issues (described on my own thread somewhere here) are currently still not yet resolved. I do have an open reference number with Apple to take my iMac back for servicing (they say to replace the hard drive now), but I just haven't had the time to do it. My recent troubles are with my iMac freezing on restarts (like after some driver installs, software updates, etc.,) that's why I've been leaving my iMac running 24/7. Like the old "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies, I'm afraid to put my iMac to sleep and/or shutdown...

must...stay...awake.....

[kmkkid]

Originally Posted by kmkkid 

My Core Duo iMac just froze up the other day, started with a little graphics corruption then nothing but the mouse would move. Probably not related, I'm hoping it was a fluke incident and that nothing is wrong with my hardware. Console didnt make any reports of anything failing or having an error. *shrug*

Well it went a week without doing it, now it's doing it multiple times in a day. It's the exact same symptoms as the new iMacs, but mine is the early 2006 model.

Random graphical artifacts, then a freeze where you can still move the cursor.

I don't know what the problem could be as everything has been fine for a year, and the diagnostics test says all is fine.

I'm thinking it's a driver issue, but why just out of the blue? I don't remember updating anything system wise since 10.4.10 and that's been fine up until now. I'm going to try sshing into the computer when it freezes, if it's still working in the background, I can't see it being a hardware issue.

[angelmb]

I have got random graphical artifacts but still not a single freeze… I fear the freeze !!

This is a 24 inches, 2.4 GHz 1 GB RAM (going to order 4 GB next week) and a 500 GB HD.

[casey]

Mine foze on me again today it had been asleep, I went to wake it and it froze had to reboot to restore it to stable.

[dimmer]

“A small number of iMac users have made us aware that a recent software update issued by Apple can sometimes cause their iMacs to freeze, requiring them to restart their iMac,”

Doesn't that seem to suggest it's "just" a freeze during the update and not something that would be a recurring issue (unless of course if you keep retrying the update and it keeps freezing as part of that)?

[kmkkid]

Originally Posted by kmkkid 

Well it went a week without doing it, now it's doing it multiple times in a day. It's the exact same symptoms as the new iMacs, but mine is the early 2006 model.

Random graphical artifacts, then a freeze where you can still move the cursor.

I don't know what the problem could be as everything has been fine for a year, and the diagnostics test says all is fine.

I'm thinking it's a driver issue, but why just out of the blue? I don't remember updating anything system wise since 10.4.10 and that's been fine up until now. I'm going to try sshing into the computer when it freezes, if it's still working in the background, I can't see it being a hardware issue.

Last night it froze again, so I tried a trick on another forum, I put it to sleep then brought it out of sleep, and it functioned again. This would suggest it's not a hardware problem, but a problem with OS X, no? Also once it did that Bluetooth went nuts and opened like 100 processes of itself, so I turned it off. I'm confused as to what's causing this, could anyone add some thoughts about my problem, cause as I said, it's last years model.

[casey]

So any updates on this issue? I have restored my imac to original software and updated all except the 1.1
update and I have no more freezing problems,so it defiantely in the 1.1 update.

[Grrr]

Originally Posted by casey 

So any updates on this issue? I have restored my imac to original software and updated all except the 1.1
update and I have no more freezing problems,so it defiantely in the 1.1 update.

As I said before, I doubt the 1.1 update is to blame at all.
And don't forget, there are 3 update states.. No update, V1.0 update, and the V1.1 update. Apple dont offer the V1.0 update any more, but its floating around out there on the net in places if anyone wants it.
Many users have suggested going back to the V1.0 update. But many of them found the problems returned later.
With no updates at all, the graphics system is quite crippled. However, unless you use suitably graphics intensive apps, you may never notice that,

If the V1.1 update was bad, Apple would have pulled it by now for certain.

A tech chap on the Blizzard/WoW forums has also suggested as much, and that the issue requires a firmware update, rather than a driver update.
The same guy also said that Apple & ATI/AMD have made good progress on the problem, and that if it wasn't for all the frenzied last minute work going on to get Leopard out the door on time, then the iMac fix would likely have been done by now.

Im taking that as good news, and im looking forward to getting this problem sorted out once and for all
(For the 1st time in years, I see a need for some kind of a "Fingers crossed" smilie!)

[casey]

Thanks for the update,well I ordered Leopard today and will wait on the fix for this issue,it's a shame Apple released a system with such a crippled graphics problem,kinda gives a bad impression to me especially since this is my first Mac,im use to it though with Windows.

[Big Slick]

Will Leopard come with its own set of "updates" or new drivers?

[.Neo]

It's odd though, even after two months I still haven't experienced a single crash on my new iMac.

[Grrr]

Originally Posted by Big Slick 

Will Leopard come with its own set of "updates" or new drivers?

I expect it will not be built in to Leopard yet.
This is just a semi educated guess though, as these iMacs are known to freeze in some recent Leopard betas too.. So its quite likely there will be an update for both 10.4 iMacs & 10.5 iMacs. And if it is indeed a firmware update, then it may even be exactly the same download for both OS's.

So the drivers & firmware are unlikely to be any different for 10.4 or 10.5. And if Apple had already fixed it in 10.5, then they really should have released an update by now for 10.4 users, but evidently they have not.

I have to say, Im looking forward to this being fixed more than im looking forward to the Leopard release!

[rubaiyat]

Have you guys tried deleting your preferences?



Love that shiny new Hmmm-mmm citrus smell of the new iMacs!

[Big Slick]

Originally Posted by Grrr 

I have to say, Im looking forward to this being fixed more than im looking forward to the Leopard release!

I second that!

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

I have got random graphical artifacts but still not a single freeze… I fear the freeze !!

This is a 24 inches, 2.4 GHz 1 GB RAM (going to order 4 GB next week) and a 500 GB HD.

OK, iMac had its maiden freeze today… it froze after a FUS and after some artifacts like giant pixels were shown… booo, it was so cool to have 4 GB of RAM installed…

[Grrr]

This update sure does feel like its a long time coming. I hope Leopard is not the update! But I should be getting it shortly anyway, so it will be the 1st thing I test.
I've hardly used this new iMac yet because of the problems And already its heading for 3 months old. Kept my old G5 iMac for now and used that more, because it is much more dependable.

[.Neo]

Chances are it will be fixed in Mac OS X 10.4.11.

[casey]

My leopard will be here today I hope it fixes it

[analogika]

MXM Update released through Software Update yesterday.

Does it fix the issue?

[Grrr]

Originally Posted by analogika 

MXM Update released through Software Update yesterday.

Does it fix the issue?

This was a mighty cruel joke!
You'd think it was exactly the update the Alu iMac owners were looking for. Right? Alas, its actually an update for the previous gen white iMacs Nothing to do with the latest iMacs and the freezing problems

While im here.. As I expected, Leopard does not fix it either............

[angelmb]

for what I can read here…

Mac OS X 10.5, Boot Camp: Black screen when booting from Windows XP install CD on iMac (Late 2006 24-inch)

it doesn't seem to be related to this issue